Ceiling fans in New Orleans

That was a funny experience.

After driving 2 days almost nonstop through the Texas deserts, suddenly we were surrounded by green, lush scenery. We stopped to fill the tank, and as I stepped out of the car, the humidity was sort of overwhelmingly surprising.

At that gas station, I ate probably the best fried chicken I have ever eaten in my life.

From Texas to Louisiana, it was like entering a new world, but then in a matter of seconds. Like teleporting to a different reality.

After some more hours, we started reaching the outskirts of New Orleans. It’s hard to remember nowadays how it was to navigate big, new cities without map apps. So of course we got lost for a while, in shady neighborhoods, desperately seeking the neighborhood of the guest house we had booked.

Eventually we found it of course, and parked the car outside at a grass field used as a parking lot.

Checked in and got the keys, found our way up to the spookiest place I have ever encountered I guess. Our room was on the 5th floor or such, and the elevators and the hallway that the elevator left us at, were something out of a Stephen King novel. The hallway had an old, red carpeting on it, and above there were ceiling fans and lanterns that kept switching on and off. We opened the door to our room then. Believe you me, I have slept in all kindsa places, but this one takes the cherry.

Well, Hurricane Katrina had gone through there some time ago, and the damage was still visible in most of the city as we later found out.

You could see it everywhere, the recovery was and probably still is a long process, for structures but mostly for the people. In this building, parts of it were simply rotten. Like the ceiling of our room, and probably also the floor. The mattresses were damp and smelly, and I saw bugs walking around on the walls. There was another ceiling fan, hanging from the ceiling that looked like it would fall off (on us).

However, as mentioned, I have slept in quite some places some of which were from surface probably worse than this. I am not very fuzzy that way as I have a talent for sleeping. But that night I did not sleep a second, despite of being devastatingly tired. There was something going on there. I could feel it. I could hear it even.

The next morning, as soon as the sun finally came up, we ventured down to the reception. I hastily asked if we could have a different room, probably expressing a fairly spooked appearance. The guy, in his fifties I guess, with a long white ponytail and a warmth in his eyes handed me a key for a room on the ground floor next to the reception. Then he just looked at me all knowingly, and asked: ‘Oh, you have met the ghosts have you?’ Apparently this was quite a common occurrence.

It turned out, that this place used to be an old orphanage ran by nuns. The backyard was a cemetery for all the kids that died in the last few decades of the 19th century from yellow fever, and other mosquito born diseases like malaria.

That made a lot of sense after that night I had spent there. A lot.

There is a vibe in New Orleans, a vibe like no other. It is a part of the air there I think.